One Pitch Away by Mike Sowell

Author:Mike Sowell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Summer Game Books

Doug DeCinces, now a successful California businessman, still recalls his failure to drive home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 5: “I remember that so clearly, let me tell you. … I wake up many times remembering it.” Photo courtesy Doug DeCinces.

The first time he heard from the team, said DeCinces, was December 22, when it had to make a contract offer to him or lose its rights for compensation should he go elsewhere. The Angels offered him salary arbitration, and he turned them down.

On January 4, 1987, four days before he would become a free agent, DeCinces was offered a three-year package “at major cuts each year.”

He thought about all he had done for the ball club, the numbers he had put up, the leadership he had provided. “And I was just getting slapped to death,” he said.

Even that offer was withdrawn by the Angels, said DeCinces. As the signing deadline neared, he was a player without a team, facing an uncertain future as a free agent in a year when free agents were, in effect, being blackballed.

“All of a sudden, twelve hours before the January eighth deadline, they mail this contract to my agent. It was a two-year contract at major cuts. So, basically, they didn’t want to sign me. But we made the decision that collusion was in full swing and there were not going to be any free agents offered contracts that year. We made the proper decision, because history showed that Tim Raines and Andre Dawson and all those guys did not get offered any contracts.

“So, my agent just called up the Angels with forty minutes left before the deadline, and Mike Port wouldn’t accept his phone call. My agent, being intelligent as he was, accepted the contract with the secretary because she was an officer of the corporation.

“She said, ‘What? You accept this? I’ll have to go get Mr. Port.’ And my agent said, ‘No, we’ll accept.’ He finalized that deal right there. We made the right choice at the time because of collusion. And when the final payoff comes for that, I’m going to get what was due me.”

DeCinces had his contract, but there was a catch. It included a clause that allowed the team to buy out the second year of the deal if it released him before the end of the season. The buyout would cost the Angels approximately $141,667, or one-sixth of his $850,000 salary.

“We tried to get that removed,” said DeCinces. “Mike Port said, ‘No way.’ We said, ‘What are you telling us?’ He said, ‘We’re not telling you anything.’ And I said, ‘Yes, you are. You’re telling me I’m not going to be here by the end of the year, period.’ He just said, ‘No comment.’

“So, I knew at the start of the season I was going to be released before the end of the year if the team wasn’t in first place.”

The hard feelings carried over to spring training. Gene Mauch

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